A Personal Homecoming, Years in the Making: Global Communities
This coming Tuesday, November 9 I’ll be having a homecoming of my own — I’ll be walking the halls of Dorchester Hall at my alma mater, the University of Maryland, College Park. Dorchester houses one of two living and learning programs. Twenty years ago, I was in the inaugural class of one of them: Global Communities.
The following two excerpts from my book: Empathy for Change: How to Create a More Understanding World describes the program and its effect on me through the years. Below that is a description of the lecture/conversation.
Excerpt from Chapter 10: Creating Cultures of Empathy
At my alma mater, the University of Maryland, College Park, I participated in the inaugural class of Global Communities, a living and learning program that combines academic coursework and participation in a residential community in pursuit of three learning goals: understanding globalization and the issues it raises, developing cultural competencies, and preparing for life and work in an interconnected world. The world seemed topsy-turvy at the time — September 11th just happened and we were all living in fear of terrorism, which luckily until that point in my life was not something I had considered.
This program helped me to see a different world I had not experienced growing up in rural America; that there were always two sides to a story. As part of my studies in this program, I thought deeply about the role culture plays between nations, the East versus West mentality, and what that means for change in this new century. I took courses in intercultural communications to learn about values and how that plays out in our different cultures. For example, Western culture (the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand) tend to favor individualism (individuals as independent) while Eastern cultures (those in Asia and the Middle East) favor collectivism (individuals as part of a group and putting the group ahead of the individual). Western cultures are more open and blunt, and they focus on creativity, interactivity, and debate, while Eastern cultures are more conservative and traditional, don’t question customs and traditions, and favor group harmony.191 These are just a few of many markers of culture differences.
We’re not in a “one-size-fits-all” culture — what country you live in has a profound impact on how you function as a person because you’ve been taught how to do this through your parents, schools, and other experiences you’ve had. The fact that we all show up with different norms and may not think or act alike as a result helped set me up for a lifetime of understanding. That helps to build empathy into my interactions with everyone.
Excerpt from Chapter 5: Empathizing with Others: Seek First to Understand
Most of the data I’ve read says I should not have turned out the way I did, but I’ve always been a bit of a maverick. I’m a first generation American on one side. I grew up in rural Maryland in a town named Street on twenty acres of land in the middle of the woods forty-five miles northeast of Baltimore. Until the age of two, my three sisters, two parents, and I lived on that land in a mobile home. We moved to the house that my father co-built, which is the house my mother just sold to a lovely family, thirty-six years later.
Most of my friends also lived in mobile home and attended schools that were homogeneously white. Our high school only had about 5 percent listed as “other.” I remember at a young age first seeing a black man with a British accent and being confused, as I thought that all Black people were from Africa. Because I was rarely exposed to anyone who was not like me, I believed the things that my family and friends told me.
My best friend through my formative years eventually had a license plate that read “Mr. GOP,” which stands for the Grand Old Party, or the Republican Party, and he worshipped Rush Limbaugh. My father was the epitome of “You can take the guy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the guy.” He was a card-carrying member of the National Rifle Association (he had a gun next to his bedside), vehemently opposed abortion, and came from an era where you voted along the party line and as such he voted for Trump in 2016. My father’s perspective and the conversations we had on the topic have helped me have empathy and understanding for those who voted for Trump.
My sisters and I are the first generation to go to college and it completely changed our worldview. At the University of Maryland, College Park, I became interested in civic life and learned all I could about other cultures and people, joining Habitat for Humanity and the Global Communities Program, and becoming a Resident Assistant for the International House. A whole world was opened up to me that I didn’t get to experience where I grew up.
The things I learned and the people I met in college gave me a more nuanced view on empathy:
we should seek common ground to show how interconnected we are while also celebrating our differences to fully “see” each other.
Those years cemented this belief within me, and I’m eternally grateful for the string of opportunities that set the groundwork for who I am and the things I would accomplish (and have yet to do). In my lifetime I’ve witnessed a change within myself and the politics of the world, yet I continue to seek common ground. Like many conversations these days, I’ve thought about what it would look like for us to see ourselves as allies and not as enemies.
This lecture and dialogue is part of Global Voices TOGETHER: A series of Open Spaces for Global Communities (GC) students to explore and dialogue about hot topic issues within GC, on campus, at the national level, and globally. Special thanks goes to Natalie Vinski Ibrahim for the help and support on making this dialogue possible!
Here’s the title and description of the session:
Title: Empathy and Change in the Pandemic
Description: The pandemic and the renewed social justice movement has forced us to change and provides a new opportunity to apply empathy in our workplaces and communities. Amy J. Wilson, the author of the recently-published book Empathy for Change: How to Create a More Understanding World will join the Global Communities program for a unique discussion on the impact of the pandemic.
Amy will share stories and lessons from two of her chapters “Empathizing With Others: Seek First to Understand” and “Change in Times of Coronavirus.” She’ll explain how the pandemic has increased our altruism, unearthed our broken systems and empathy deficit, and has changed our worldview for the better. Amy is also an alum of the first Global Communities program class, graduating in 2004.
